THE LAST THING Kairos wanted to face, when all he wanted was to see and touch Valentina, was a battalion of overbearing, interfering, annoying Contis.
Yet when he had finally bulldozed his way into Villa De Conti on the banks of Lake Como almost three weeks later, on a crisp November evening, the family, including the patriarch Antonio, were assembled around the ornate dining table, all staring up at him, mostly with varying degrees of anger, mistrust and doubt.
Except Leandro’s little girl Isabella, who instantly wrapped her arms around him for a quick hug.
“Hello, Isabella,” he said returning her hug.
Sophia stared at him with searching eyes. Whatever she had seen there, she pushed her chair back and embraced him.
“I’m not going to ask you how you are,” she whispered, only for his ears. “You look awful.”
“You know what she’s capable of,” he answered in kind, not even pretending to misunderstand.
“You deserved it.”
Suddenly, panic-fueled urgency filled him. “Do I have a chance, Sophia?”
She betrayed nothing. “That’s for her to tell you, Kairos.” She smiled fondly then. “Always calculating the odds before you take the leap, si? It will not work in this.”
He could never understand how smart, sensible Sophia could tolerate the charming scoundrel that was the Conti Devil, but then he still didn’t understand what his vivacious wife had ever seen in him to love.
“Being married suits you,” he said with a smile.
She blushed before going back to her place next to her husband.
“What the hell do you want now?” Luca growled at him from the top end of the table, sitting exactly opposite Leandro on the other side.
“I wish to speak to my wife.”
“She’s not here.”
“You’re lying. And I will beat you to a bloody pulp and mar that pretty face if you get in my way again.”
Utter silence descended over the table.
“Don’t you think you’ve hurt her enough?” Again from the crazy genius. “Not counting the fact that you endangered her by letting loose that woman on Tina.”
Kairos didn’t know what he was doing until he had Luca’s shirt bunched in his shoulders. The fear inside him knew no bounds. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Something in his tone must have communicated itself to him, because Luca’s voice softened. “Helena came to see Valentina at work and caused a huge scene. I was there thankfully, and I think Tina talked some sense into her.”
“Also, Tia Tina told me she slapped that horrible woman,” Izzie piped up. “Oops, I wasn’t supposed to tell you guys that.”
Thee mou, what had Helena done to hurt Valentina?
Luca loosened his shirt from Kairos’s grip. “I honestly don’t think you’re right for her. All you have caused her so far is pain.”
The barb stuck home but Kairos forced himself to ignore Luca. Instead he addressed Leandro, who had always been the more sensible one.
“I have been trying for three weeks to see her. To contact her. She’s still my damned wife. I should have been told Helena was here. It is I who brought Valentina into her focus. I should have been—” He couldn’t even get the words out.
“Tina forbade us, Kairos,” Sophia added softly.
“You’ve no right to stop me. To block my attempts.” The stunt that Luca had pulled a week ago when he had ferried Valentina away on his beastly bike while Kairos had been waiting in the front lounge made his blood boil.
Leandro sighed. “She doesn’t want to see you. And I will not lose her by interfering again, just when she is back in our lives.”
“I’m not asking for your interference. I’m asking you to stay out of this. She is mine—to protect and to hold on to.” The ragged words escaped before he could stop them.
Every gaze looked upon him with varying degrees of shock and pity now.
Leandro’s wife, Alexis, shrugged. “He has a point, Leandro. You’re still protecting her.”
“Have you seen the look she gets in her eyes when she thinks no one’s looking at her?” Luca demanded of Alexis.
“Si, Luca. We have all seen it,” Sophia responded, with a hand over his shoulder. “And that tells me more than anything that we should give Kairos a chance. We all make mistakes.”
“Not the same one, twice,” Luca added meaningfully.
“She’s in the garden,” Alexis added hurriedly. “And she has a guest, so maybe you should wait.”
“Who?”
“Ethan King,” Luca said with a wicked smile, twisting the knife a little in Kairos’s gut.
Sophia sent him a warning glance. “He’s been talking to her about investment opportunities in her new boutique.”
Kairos had heard enough. With a muttered curse, he made his way to the garden when Izzie pointed out, “They’re not in the garden anymore. I saw them going up the stairs, into her bedroom.”
* * *
Valentina had barely settled in the sitting room of her suite and pulled up her website analytics with Ethan when her hand hit the glass of white wine she had poured for him.
Cursing to herself, she mopped up the wine from the sofa and was about to hand him the napkin when the door of her bedroom opened with a hard slam. It hit the wall, then swung forward until Kairos stopped its momentum.
His gaze took in her outstretched hand over Mr. King’s shirt and thunder dawned in the silver gaze.
Before she could think, she guiltily snatched her hand back. And then regretted the move.
He had no rights over her. She had done nothing to be guilty about, either.
He stared at her with such naked emotion shining in his eyes that it took her a few minutes to process the surge of her own feelings. And then pathetically, once again, she landed on hope in the end.
Her heart pounded with that same eagerness that she had tried to curb since the moment she had realized he was back in Milan. That he had been trying to see her.
But she was so tired of that hope. Exhausted from the weight of it.
“I would like to speak with you,” he said, almost successful in packing away all the emotion radiating from him. “In private. At length.”
“I’m not free right now,” she offered softly. “Ethan only has this one hour before he leaves for the States. I’ve been waiting for weeks for a chance to speak with him.”
His gaze flew to her open laptop and then back to her. Uncertainty and hesitation and something else flickered in his gaze. He had never looked so vulnerable.
“Take as long as you need. I will wait outside,” he said and her heart slipped a little.
Over the next few minutes, she tried to corral her thoughts. But the business proposal she had put together with Sophia’s help blurred. The statistics she meant to show Ethan zigzagged, her heart focused on the man waiting outside the door for her.
He had never waited for her. He had never looked at her as if his heart was in his eyes.
Sick of the turmoil in her gut, she finally apologized to Ethan and the gentleman that he was, he was nice about it and excused himself from the room.
The door had barely closed behind him when Kairos reached her.
A white shirt and black trousers hugged his powerful physique. Dark shadows circled his eyes and instead of the satisfaction she wanted to feel, all she suffered was a soft ache.
He looked so tired. She knew how hard he worked. But more than that, she knew what a toll it would have taken on him to finish what he had started with Helena and the company.
She ached to hold him, to love him, to offer him the comfort he desperately needed. But he wouldn’t allow it. He needed her but he would never admit it.
“Why is it that I always have to chase you—” his nostrils flared “—and then find you with a man in some intimate situation?”
“Maybe the question you should be asking is why is it that you’re always chasing me,” she countered. “What is it that you do that makes me run from you in the first place?”
He flinched and she wrapped her arms around herself. She had promised herself she wouldn’t do this. She wouldn’t beg. She wouldn’t complain. She would want nothing from him.
But seeing him after so many weeks, she could barely breathe, barely keep herself together.
How had she forgotten how he dwarfed everything with his presence? How he took over her very breath when he was near?
“I saw the clip from the talk show. And the vlog...that was a stroke of genius.”
“Si?”
“I knew you had it in you. I’m glad for your success, Valentina.”
“I owe it to you,” she said softly.
“That internship with Chiara—”
“No, it was your criticism that I was doing nothing with my life that egged me on. I wanted to prove you wrong. To show you that I could be successful, too. Only I realized how much I enjoy it. That I’m good at it. You did teach me that I could be more than the shallow, vapid Valentina, more than what the Conti genes amount to. But you also made me realize that my value as a person doesn’t depend on whether I’m a success or a failure. That I’m my own person and it is your loss if you can’t love me.”
How many times could one’s heart break?
When she tried to step back, he clasped her arm to stop her. “Don’t—” he cleared his throat “—do not retreat from me, Valentina.”
Her heart crawled into her throat at the rough need he couldn’t hide in his voice. “Why are you here, Kairos?”
“First, please tell me Helena didn’t hurt you.”
“Is that why you’re here? To make sure she didn’t do me lasting damage? Out of guilt?” She couldn’t keep the disappointment out of her voice.
“No, I didn’t know until Luca told me a few minutes ago. I’m sorry, Valentina. I should have realized—”
“She didn’t hurt me, Kairos. I was actually recording the vlog when she stormed into the studio at Conti Towers. I don’t think even she realized how far gone she was. She ranted that you were cutting her off, that she would make you pay for it. And that she knew how to make you suffer. I couldn’t take it. I slapped her so hard that my arm still hurts. It was dramatic, almost soap-opera-like, but sometimes that’s what it takes, si?
“I told her I would tell Theseus everything she had ever done if she didn’t quietly accept what you were giving her. And then she would truly be on the streets. I told her I would set my powerful brothers loose on her if she ever came near you again. If she ever hurt you again. And I think it was helpful that Luca looked exceptionally scruffy and dangerous that day—he’d been on one of his days-without-sleep composing binge, and I think for once my threats got through—”
“I love you.”
“Got through to her and she...she...” Words stuck in her throat, lodged beneath her heart. Had she imagined the words? Had she... “What did you say?”
“S’agapao, Valentina. So much that it terrifies me. So much that I can’t sleep or eat or drink.”
He fell to his knees in front of her, and Tina thought she might be hallucinating. She was afraid that she was only imagining this, that it was another dream haunting her sleep...no words came.
Until he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her belly. So tight that she could barely breathe.
The scent of him hit her like a thunderstorm, sinking into her pores.
He was real, this was real. The arms holding her...the soft kisses he was planting on her belly, the huffs of his breath feathering over her skin, it was all real.
He looked up then and the love shining in his eyes stole her breath all over again. “I’m crazy about you. I love your teasing smiles, your penchant for drama, your unswerving loyalty, your generous heart.” His palm rested on her chest. The thud of her heart was loud enough to roar through the room. “I love your long legs, your small breasts, your perfect skin, but more than anything I love you, agapi mou. I love how you love me. I love that you fight so bravely for the ones you love. I love that you make me a better man, that you fill my life with so much color and drama and noise—”
She laughed at that and he laughed and then she was in his arms. Kissing him hungrily amidst sobbing. He tasted of love and acceptance and home. Palms clasping his jaw, she kissed him until she couldn’t breathe anymore. But the tears refused to stop.
She knew how much he hated tears so she buried her face in his neck. The scent of him, the taste of his skin finally calmed her.
“Shh, moru mou. No more tears. I would rather cut out my heart then be apart from you ever again. I was a fool not to understand how much you love me. How much I already loved you. A coward to believe that you would take it away on a whim.
“I was so afraid of hurt that I didn’t even realize how long I have loved you.
“I think it started the first time even. You wore an emerald green dress that bared your entire back and you had been standing amidst your admirers and when Leandro called for you, there had been such unconditional love in your eyes, such open affection... I think I was struck immediately.” His words made her gasp and she fought for her breath.
They didn’t come easily to him, she knew. And she loved him all the more for it.
His palm stroked up and down her back tenderly, a torrent of endearments rushing out of him amidst a million apologies.
She felt his kiss at her temple, his shallow breaths as if, just like her, he was still unsure that she was here in his arms. “Valentina?”
“Si?”
“I should like to hear you say it, pethi mou. I am dying inside with the fear that I might have pushed you away one too many times, that finally you have realized that—”
She placed her finger on his lips.
“I love you, Kairos. I always will. I love you, knowing that you are stubborn, and ruthless and reserved. But I also love you knowing that you’re kind, wonderful and extremely generous when it comes to orgasms. I recently read in some magazine that very few men actually go down on a woman whereas they expect the return all the time?”
Only his wife could insert the statistics about blow jobs into the conversation while he was pouring his heart out.
Kairos laughed, picked her up and followed her down to her bed.
He tugged her to him and kissed her some more. A lot more. Hard, consuming kisses. Soft, needy kisses. Tongues and teeth, they clung to each other until the need for air forced them apart.
He stripped her clothes and his with an urgency that devoured him.
And then she was naked for him. Long, sleek limbs toned with muscle. Small pouty breasts with lush nipples. She was perfect and she was his.
She reached out her hand to him, no shadows in her eyes. Nothing but abiding love and sultry temptation. “Come to me, please. I have missed you.”
“Not more than I missed you.” He growled against her mouth. “I can’t be slow, pethi mou. Not today. I... I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t, Kairos. Trust me. Trust this thing between us, si?”
“Si.” But there was nothing he could do to stem his urgent need.
He kissed her breasts, her belly, her legs, every inch of her perfect skin. When she scratched his back, just as frantic as him, he pushed his fingers into her wet heat. As deep as she could take him.
The need riding her, her body arching off the bed when he massaged her clit, the sheen of her skin...that calmed his need.
The scent of her arousal, that she had always wanted him, that she had again chosen him to love...it calmed the furor in his blood.
He sucked on her nipples, relentlessly pushing her to the edge until she fractured around his fingers. Until tremors built and ebbed in her slender body.
And then when the edge of their hunger for each other had been taken off, when she had calmed enough to believe that he wasn’t going anywhere, he sat up, pulled her into his embrace until she was straddling him and then he thrust into her snug heat.
Arms around his back, mouths glued to each other’s, they made slow, lazy love. All he wanted was to be inside her. To be surrounded by her warmth. To love her for as long as there was breath in his body.
“I love you, Valentina,” he whispered, before he increased his thrusts, before release claimed his soul.
* * *
Hours later, Kairos emerged from deep sleep. His hand shot out instantly searching for his wife.
When he found her, his heartbeat returned to normal.
After he had toppled them both off the edge and into exhaustion for the third time, she had snuck down to the kitchen and had assured her family that he hadn’t killed her, for she had heard them outside the door, muttering and arguing,
They had devoured the cheese and fruit plate she had brought upstairs. The white wine—he had lapped it off her breasts, her tummy and her soft folds. Whatever he did, however many times release clashed through him, it wasn’t enough.
He pulled her down to lie alongside him. Her back to his chest, she cozily nuzzled into him. “I’m never going to get enough of you, I’m never going to let you go,” he said, unable to cover the fierceness of his tone.
“Nor will I you,” she said in a low, sleep-mussed voice. “We will have a big family, maybe four, five kids...boisterous, dramatic, noisy kids like me and we will drive you up the wall.”
“That sounds like paradise.”
“Kairos?”
The uncertainty still in her voice gutted him. “Yes?”
“Are you still looking for a job?”
He laughed and turned her over until she was facing him. Propping himself up on an elbow, he placed a lazy kiss on her mouth. “I am. I have offers from a few MNCs to do some house cleaning but nothing I’m interested in. We can live wherever you want. Do whatever we want. I’m not in a particular hurry to return to work.”
“No. I know you’re busy and that’s fine but I just want to spend time with you. Have those four or five kids after a couple of years maybe?”
“Si. I...told Maria that we would spend Christmas with them.” He frowned. “I’m sorry. I should have realized that you might want to spend it with your family.”
“How about New Year with the Contis instead?”
This time, she rose up and claimed him for a soft kiss. “Hopefully by then Luca and I will be able to tolerate being in the same room.”
She laughed, and then sobered. “You and Maria talked?”
“She told Theseus everything.”
Her tight hug said so many things words could not. He let himself bask in the warmth of it. A hundred years together and he wouldn’t have enough of Valentina.
She combed her fingers through his hair and sighed. “I have a proposal for you. But you don’t have to accept it.”
“Sounds important,” he said trying to sound encouraging.
“I would like to live in Milan for a bit, with the boutique taking off it seems like a perfect fit.”
“Valentina, we can live wherever you want, as long as we’re together.”
“Leandro is still looking for a CEO. He’s—”
“Oxhi!”
“Kairos, please listen to me. He told me you’ve always been the perfect candidate. He trusts you. And I think...as the Conti heiress’s loving husband, it is your right.”
“I never wanted to do anything that would make you doubt my love for you.”
“You won’t. This doesn’t. Ti amo, Kairos, and no job you take, no woman who wants you, will change that.”
Joy suffusing his very soul, Kairos said yes to his wife.
And he meant to say yes for a very long time—to everything she asked.
* * * * *